‘Ummm …’ I looked up at the ceiling. The lights from the chandeliers played prettily on the plaster. I considered my new information, turned it over in my mind and thought there was no reason to withhold it. I could see no harm in sharing it.
‘Well, there’s one thing. I found out that Genevieve was pregnant when she married Alexander.’
The detective shook his head. ‘No, she can’t have been.’
I thought one of us had misheard the other. I smiled at a waitress who was proffering a tray of tiny mozzarella balls smeared with pesto. I popped one into my mouth. The cheese was sour and milky on my tongue.
‘She definitely was,’ I said. ‘I found her wedding dress – it was a maternity dress. She must have been more than a little bit pregnant because all her other clothes are way too small for me but …’
The detective was looking at me in a curious way.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You do know that Alexander spent some time in prison?’
I nodded.
‘What exactly do you know, Sarah?’
‘Just that he was locked up for a while. I don’t know what he did or anything.’
‘Then you wouldn’t know. Alexander and Genevieve married almost as soon as he was released.’
‘So?’
The inspector leaned forward and spoke quietly, but distinctly, into my ear.
‘If Genevieve was pregnant with Alexander’s child when they married, she couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks gone. She wouldn’t have needed a maternity dress. All told, he was inside for the best part of a year.’
The penny dropped. The inspector steadied my arm and turned me away from the crowd so they would not see the shock on my face. My legs were shaky.
‘So Jamie isn’t Alexander’s son? I mean, not his blood son?’ I asked in a whisper.
‘If what you told me is true, he can’t be,’ he said. ‘And Alexander must know that.’
I remembered what Alexander had told me about the fight that led to Genevieve stabbing him.
I remembered how worried Alexander had been about the Churchills taking Jamie from him.
I thought of the way Alexander looked at Jamie; the way his eyes softened with love when he saw the boy.
‘Oh God,’ I sighed, as the full implications rolled over me, one after the other. ‘Oh no.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
THERE WAS A breeze at my arm and the scent of Chanel and hairspray, and I turned to see Virginia all wafty and out of character in a dress and high-ish heels.
She said: ‘Hello, Sarah, how are you?’ in a tone of voice that made it clear she didn’t much care one way or the other, and then she said: ‘I’m afraid I must stop you monopolizing one of the few eligible bachelors in the room,’ and led DI Twyford away. He looked over his shoulder and jerked one hand upwards to mimic a hanging motion. I smiled and took another sip of wine. I felt a little sick. I had the strongest urge to be with Jamie, to sit beside him and hold his hand and make sure no harm came to him.
I hadn’t been able to protect my own son, but I could protect Jamie.
I decided to slip out, pick the boy up from Claudia’s and take him back to Avalon. I would not exactly be lying if I said I was feeling unwell. I could take Jamie into my bed, sleep with my arms around him so that nobody could take him from me. In the morning we could work something out, Alexander and I, some way of guaranteeing Jamie would always be with us. I could ask Neil for advice. That was what I would do. I’d call him first thing. I was halfway across the room, on the way to the exit, when I sensed, rather than saw, Alexander return. I could tell by his stride and the set of his shoulders that something good had happened. He came straight across the floor to me, took hold of my hand and leaned down to kiss my cheek gently.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and get another drink.’
‘Alexander, I think we ought to fetch Jamie and go back to Avalon,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Something’s wrong.’
‘He’s fine. I’ve had my mobile on. Claudia’s sitter hasn’t called.’
‘She doesn’t know him very well. She wouldn’t be able to tell if he was getting worse.’
‘Sarah, he’s perfectly all right.’
‘But what if this is all a set-up? What if the Churchills set this up so they could take Jamie away from us?’
Alexander pulled a face and took a step back from me.
‘What’s put all this into your head?’
I stared at him. He looked like a film star. He stood tall and confident with his shoulders straight and his head held high. For the first time since I’d known him he looked proud – not in a defiant way, but in a heroic way.
‘Sarah? What happened? Did that bastard Twyford say something to you?’
‘No, no. I’m just worried. I’ve got a bad feeling about Jamie. I’m scared something awful’s going to happen. Alexander, please …’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. We’ll call the sitter. We’ll speak to Jamie. Will that help?’
I nodded miserably.
Alexander led me to the far end of the hall, through a narrow drawing room, beautifully decorated and lined with chairs, and into a kind of anteroom, where bottles of red wine were breathing and Sancerre chilled in buckets on tables covered with white linen cloths. Sparkling crystal glasses were lined in ranks. The waiting staff had been restocking their serving trays from the room, but it was empty when we went in. They were busy preparing the dining room for the sit-down supper.
Alexander took out his mobile phone and called Claudia’s number. He switched the phone to loudspeaker so that I could hear.
The sitter answered.
‘Hello, Mr Westwood.’
‘Hello, Sue. I’m sorry to bother you, but we just wanted to check that Jamie was OK.’
‘He’s fine. He’s been good as gold and his temperature had gone right down last time I checked.’
Alexander raised his eyebrows at me. I chewed at my thumbnail and shook my head. That wasn’t good enough.
‘Would you mind passing the phone to him? We need a word.’
‘You want me to wake him?’
Now Alexander pulled an exasperated face at me. I reached over and took the phone from him.
‘I’m sorry, I know it’s hassle for you, but I need to hear Jamie,’ I said. ‘Otherwise we’re coming back now.’
The woman sighed. We heard her pushing herself to her feet. We heard her footsteps as she crossed the hall and went up the stairs. We heard the creak of a bedroom door being pushed open. We heard her say: ‘Petra and Allegra Lefarge, why aren’t you in bed, you naughty girls?’, and we heard the twins giggling.
‘We’re looking after Jamie,’ one of them said.
‘Is he still awake? Are you awake, pet?’
We heard Jamie sigh.
It was definitely Jamie – I recognized that sleepy little voice, and my body responded with a surge of tenderness.
‘Your daddy wants a word with you.’
‘Daddy?’
‘Just wanted to say night night,’ Alexander said.
‘Night,’ Jamie sighed.
‘Sleep tight, pet,’ the sitter said. There were some muffled sounds as she tucked Jamie in, and then we heard the footsteps retreating.
‘All right?’ the sitter asked.
‘Fine now, thank you,’ I said.
‘You’re welcome,’ the woman replied frostily.
‘OK?’ Alexander asked. He put the phone back in his pocket.
I nodded.
He took hold of a bottle of red wine, filled two glasses and passed one to me.
‘What are we celebrating?’ I asked tentatively.
Alexander beamed. ‘I’ve now, officially, repaid Philip Churchill every penny of the money I owed him.’
He leaned down and kissed me hard, full on the lips. One of those kisses that made me thrill to the core because it was a kiss for me and nothing at all to do with Gene
vieve.
‘It means we’re free,’ he whispered. His hand was in my hair, the heat of his breath was in my ear.
‘Free from what?’ I asked, all low and soft because he’d said: ‘We’re free’; he was including me in his future.
‘Avalon, Philip, Genevieve, this family. We don’t owe them anything any more. They have no hold over us. I’ve paid off my debt.’
‘You mean we can leave? We can take Jamie and leave? We can go somewhere else? Somewhere far from here?’
‘We can do whatever we want,’ said Alexander.
‘Let’s go now,’ I said. ‘Let’s go tonight.’
But we didn’t. The night wore on and the clock turned slowly. After an exhausting dinner of curried soup, game pie and roast potatoes and plum pudding, during which I struggled to make conversation with the two elderly gentlemen between whom I was sitting, a four-piece band struck up. They were playing old dance music, tunes I recognized but did not know well.
I didn’t care about the music. All I wanted was to be with Alexander and Jamie, somewhere, anywhere, that wasn’t Burrington Stoke.
Philip and Virginia were first to the dance floor and the spotlight was on them, and it was touching. Together, the disparity in their age was obvious. She looked almost a child in his arms. He hobbled, supported by his stick and his wife. They gazed at one another like the young people they once were, with unconditional adoration. I felt sorry for them. Virginia and Philip looked into one another’s eyes, but I supposed neither was seeing the other; each would be looking at Genevieve.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE NEXT MORNING there was no opportunity to talk about leaving because we had invited Claudia, Bill and the girls to Avalon for lunch. I got up early to ramp up the heat in the Rayburn’s oven and to lay the table in the dining room. In my mind I was severe with myself. It was imperative I acted normally, not like somebody who was making plans to escape. I had to be charming, cheerful – a good hostess.
It was the first time, and now I knew it would also be the last, that Alexander and I entertained anyone at Avalon. I wanted to make it special to thank Claudia for her friendship and loyalty over the past months. She was not to know, but I intended it to be my farewell gift to her; something pleasant to remember me by when we were gone.
I put down a clean cloth, and the mats I’d found in the old dresser, and I laid out the best cutlery and glassware. I filled a vase with mistletoe and I put my homemade horseradish sauce into a little silver pot I’d found at the back of a cupboard. Jamie had a cough, but was better than he had been. He sloped around helping me. Alexander, who was hungover, lay in.
The Lefarge family arrived punctually at 12 o’clock. I guessed that they had come straight from church, only stopping to pick up the dogs and their wellingtons.
As I worked in the kitchen, I heard the other adults in the living room talking about this and that, and soon enough the conversation turned to the fact that Alexander had paid off his debt to Philip, and their voices dropped, as if this was not a subject that should be discussed within earshot of me.
No, I was being paranoid. It was the children who must not hear. Jamie and the girls were running about upstairs playing some convoluted daylight version of Murder in the Dark. I heard their thrilled squeals and giggles while I stirred the roux for the leek sauce.
I was proud of the way the table looked when we sat down to eat, although I had to move the mistletoe after Claudia told me it signified bad luck at the table. The last thing Alexander and I needed then was ill fortune. It was only a small glitch. I was proud of the food, too, which turned out fine, but mostly I was proud of Alexander and Jamie. I looked across at them both, and I remembered how they were when I first came to Avalon, and it was not my imagination, things were better now, despite all that had happened. Some of the introspection and some of the hurt was gone.
We managed to go through the whole meal without anyone mentioning Genevieve. It was a record.
I knew we were making the most of the fact that there was, as yet, no conclusive proof that anything bad had happened to Genevieve. For those few hours, everything was all right. We had no reason not to be in a good mood. It was nearly Christmas. Nothing terrible ever happened at Christmas.
After we had finished the lemon meringue pie, Alexander raised his glass to me and said: ‘Thank you for everything, Sarah.’
The whole family followed suit and I had to look down at my plate.
‘I mean it,’ Alexander said quietly. ‘Thank you for putting up with us.’
‘Hear, hear!’ said Bill, and he winked at me.
And that’s when the dizziness came over me, just as it had done before, in Jamie’s bedroom. This time, the nausea overwhelmed me so fast that I had to cover my mouth with my hand. I stumbled from the room, and ran upstairs to the bathroom, where I was terribly sick. When I finally stood up to wash my face, my eyes were red and swollen and my skin was deathly pale and somebody was standing behind me. I saw a movement in the mirror and I felt breath on my neck but, when I turned, nobody was there.
‘Please, Genevieve,’ I whispered. ‘Please leave me alone. I didn’t do anything to hurt you, I’m only trying to make things better.’
I didn’t hear anything, but words came into my mind, just as they had before, as if someone had whispered into my ear. The words that were there, but which I did not hear, were: ‘You next.’
‘You OK?’ Alexander asked when I went back downstairs.
I nodded. ‘Fine.’
He looked at me quizzically. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘It’s nothing.’
I saw him and Claudia exchange glances.
‘Nothing,’ I said tetchily.
When the dishwasher was loaded and was sloshing away in its loyal, reliable fashion, we put on our boots and jackets, called the dogs in and put them on their leads ready for a walk.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Allegra.
‘What about walking up to the old quarry? We haven’t been there for ages.’
‘I don’t think we should take the dogs there,’ said Alexander. ‘What if they were to chase a rabbit over the edge?’
‘Mendips then?’
‘OK.’
So that’s where we went. Alexander, Claudia and the twins went in the Land Rover and Bill drove Jamie, me and the dogs in the Volvo.
It was a lovely drive and Jamie was talkative. He was very fond of the dogs and maintained a running commentary with them. I, on the other hand, was silent. I turned the words I had heard over and over in my mind. Why was I going to be next? What did that mean? Next to do what? Disappear? Die? I sat, quietly terrified, pretending to listen to Bill’s operatic music on CD. We soon pulled on to the airport road and headed west towards Crook Peak, and I tried to work out what the warning meant, because it was a warning, I was sure of that.
I gazed out of the window. The trees were black and bare now, skeleton trees, their bony branches stark against a pale, wintry sky, and the grass was a winter green. Twiggy black hedges lined the fields and smoke curled from the chimneys of the farmhouses that sat square and grey in the landscape. The music seemed a fitting soundtrack to the bleak countryside.
You next.
Not if I got away from Burrington Stoke first. Alexander and I had to leave, as soon as we could. That’s what we had to do.
In the car, I lost myself in imagining how it would feel to be driving away from Burrington Stoke for ever. I wondered if this would be the road we’d take. Would tomorrow be too late? When was I going to be next? How long did I have?
When Bill spoke, it took me a few moments to bring myself back into the present.
‘I know you’ve had a rough time but, if it’s any consolation, I think you’ve done a great job with Alexander,’ he said, turning to smile at me. ‘He’s like a different person now.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said.
I looked over my shoulder. Jamie was entirely engrossed in his game with the dogs.
‘Maybe h
e’s starting to get over Genevieve,’ I said quietly. ‘At last.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Bill. ‘He was in a bloody awful state when she left.’
We drove on a little longer and then were stuck at traffic lights.
Bill shook his head.
‘Poor bugger, she put him through hell,’ he said.
‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Jamie, leaning forward.
‘Nearly,’ said Bill. He was staring straight ahead now. The lights changed and he put the car into gear.
‘Don’t blame Alexander,’ he said.
‘What do you mean? Don’t blame him for what?’
Bill turned slightly and gave me a strange look.
‘Being the man he is,’ he said.
Jamie was leaning on the headrest, his breath was hot in my ear, and I did not have the opportunity to pursue the subject any further.
CHAPTER FIFTY
WE HAD A lovely walk, although Blue had to be kept on the lead after he bounded after a child with a football and knocked him flying and then punctured the ball. Bill gave the boy’s parents a ten-pound note and a long-winded apology to compensate for the dog’s bad behaviour. Afterwards everyone came back to Avalon for tea and cake and we laughed at Blue’s inability to repent his sins.
‘Do you know, the only person he ever listened to was Genevieve,’ said Claudia.
I tensed a little.
‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ she asked Bill. ‘Gen never even had to raise her voice; she only had to look at him and he’d behave. She was so good with animals!’
Bill smiled indulgently, but I had the feeling he thought Claudia was remembering things differently. I felt sorry for them both. And it felt odd that even Claudia was talking about Genevieve in the past tense now.
It was evening before I had a chance to speak to Alexander alone. As soon as the Lefarge family left, I told him I wanted us to leave Burrington Stoke immediately, straight away, now.
‘Hey,’ he said, stroking my back. ‘Don’t get in a state about it.’
‘We have to go. It’s really important we go,’ I said. ‘You don’t understand.’
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